Blonde Redhead : "My Impure Hair"

This is the final Mike Mills/Blonde Redhead collaboration for 23. And in some ways, this is the purest and most simple of the videos.

"My Impure Hair" is a delicate song, resting quietly at the closing of the album. After so much layering and stacking, thick with humidity, drug-swirls, an intangible sense of déjà vu and song after song of night-climbing city tracks, beautifully and perfectly wound into a soundtrack of concrete and post-modern thought, this track brings such sweet closure to this album destined for its place in the darkness. Its simplistic format beckons the morning sun, as it slowly rises above the end of all that was terrible about the night before.

I love how, with glooming bravado, the video slowly fades to black.

Blonde Redhead : "Top Ranking"

Mike Mills and Blonde Redhead. What is it about their collaborations that insist he make simple, artistic music videos? Whatever the reason, it's always a delight. This one isn't like the last two I have posted. It's fun, rather than dark or sad.

Blonde Redhead : "The Dress"

Another Blonde Redhead video, directed by Mike Mills. Once again emphasizing the subtle, and giving way for some flagitious, unspoken event, "The Dress" comes through, lyrically, so much clearer, than if we were to be watching some preordained set of images. This is such a sad song. However, I see this video as much more than merely an artistic effort to stretch the boundaries of the "less is more" mentality.
By displaying images of sadness, we are given only a piece of some thought, some perception that all of us can relate with. Each of us have a subconscious understanding/ability to relate with the images of all these sobbing individuals.

Blonde Redhead : "Silently"

This song is gorgeous. Blonde Redhead is gorgeous. "Silently" is some kind of love song, but its initial subject matter seems to differ with the dialogue and context of this video. The video tells a story of a woman, who witnesses a crime. And as we learn, she witnesses it incorrectly. Maybe she understands compassion after thinking on the the scenario the second time around. Or perhaps, she just couldn't bring herself to speak up against what had happened.

"Silently" is just one of many finely attributed music videos created by film director Mike Mills. His touch for the simple is showcased here; Minimalism at its finest.